Identity Crisis
by torpedo
Summary: fantasy AU. Sir Sora goes on a quest to naturally save a princess! Unfortunately for him , this isn't your ordinary princess...
1. This Is Not A Princess

**Identity Crisis**

* * *

Sir Sora gingerly climbed up the stairs, careful of his injured leg, and felt more than heard the other knight coming immediately behind him. His nerves and senses were shot after fighting that guard-beast…thing at the entrance, and it was a miracle he could detect his companion's presence at all.

He carefully picked his way through the tower room, and wondered, briefly, why it was so barren and cold. Except for the centerpiece at, well, the center of the room, the room was unfurnished. The glassless, drapes-less window did nothing to keep out the cold, and the curtains surrounding the platform waved and fluttered flimsily.

He reached the platform, moved aside cloth that felt silken, immaterial, and reached the dais and the purpose of his quest at last.

His breath caught at the vision of loveliness before his eyes. Pale, pale, hair strewn on the platform seemed to meld into the white gown, laced with what seemed to be the same delicate material as the flimsy curtains, embroidered with gentle patterns of a faded, gentle sea green.

Sora heard the slight gasp from behind him, but Sora was frowning, now, because aside from the half-serious thought of _isn't she cold?_, his eye detected something a bit off, and in a moment realized what it was.

He looked up, and a moment later violet-washed blue met his gaze. "Think there was some kind of mistake?" he asked his companion. "This is a man. In a dress," he added unnecessarily, glancing back at the man resting on the dais.

"Some mistake," Kai answered, amused, eyes straying that way, as well. "What are you going to do?"

Sora sighed, softly. "What else? I was ordered to go kiss a stranger, either way." Plucking up his courage, he leaned over and timidly kissed the man on the lips.

The sudden intake of breath, so different from the shallow breathing of the man's deep sleep, startled Sora, and he jumped back, hand almost reaching for his sword, as the man shot up.

"Wha—" the man's eyes fell on them, and he not-so subtly shifted, edging away from them. "Who are you?"

"Easy, easy" Sora implored, holding up his hands. "We're knights from the Kingdom. We came to wake you up."

The man frowned, and seemed to size up the two of them with a look. Sora noticed that the man's hand twitched, before the man said, "I guess I have to believe you." He looked around briefly, sizing up the room, before glancing down, "Why am I wearing a dress?"

Sora had to stifle a laugh at the glare that had spread across the man's face, and felt Kai behind him doing the same. "We don't know. Wanna go back to the Kingdom and ask?"

The man looked at them with some furtiveness, before asking, "How long was I locked up here?"

"We don't know that, either," Sora regretfully answered. "But—"

"Yeah, yeah, your Kingdom," the man muttered, and Sora was sharp enough to share a look with Kai. _Their_ Kingdom?

The man took one more look around the room, toyed with the ends of his hair (which seemed to irritate him, for some reason), and sighed, "I guess I have no choice. I'll go with you. For now."

The knights didn't argue the "for now" part of the man's decision, and politely hovered while he disentangled himself, with a few winces that did not go unnoticed, from all of that cloth.

"I'm Riku," he said as he stepped down from the dais, "I suppose you two have names?"

"I'm Sora. He's Kai," Sora answered for them both, and then, because he didn't have enough self-restraint to resist, "Are you really going out in that?"

Riku turned to look at him coolly, "You don't have any bags with you."

"Riku, 1, Sora, 0," Kai snickered as he passed the still sputtering knight to follow Riku down the steps.

Sora took a moment to smack his forehead. "What did I get _into_?"

* * *

Sora rummaged through his saddlebags with deliberate slowness for his extra clothes, wondering if they were big enough for the tall man and eavesdropping on their conversation, when the three of them got down from the tower and to the knights' horses.

He was giving Kai time to talk to Riku, Kai posing light, somewhat disguised questions, and Riku doing his best to evade them. Sora could tell, even from here, that Princess Riku was very, very uncomfortable not _knowing_, and he was going to refrain from revealing his information until he found out what he wanted to know, first.

Not that he was doing a good job of it. Sora could detect the slightly pitying tone of voice Kai used when he knew you weren't being entirely honest. And Sora could hear Riku restlessly shifting around, as if trying to escape Kai's very direct, very unnerving gaze.

Sora thought he could relate. That look of Kai's had blown his own resolution several times already. Thank goodness it was never for anything too embarrassing.

"Here we go," he said finally, bringing out the extra clothes at last. "These are my—er, longest spares. They uhm, might be too small, even still. We can stop at the first village," he offered, looking Riku over again and wondering why he had to loom like that. Made it harder to tell how much bigger than Sora he really was, because the looming thing made him look so much taller.

"Thanks," Riku said with exaggerated politeness, taking the clothes and deliberately not looking at Kai, demonstrating that he'd known what the knights were up to. He gave an exaggerated bow, too, to show that they knights were certainly _not_ welcome to come sneak glances at him while he changed, and headed into the trees to do that.

"Quite rude, isn't he?" Kai said, his eyes dancing.

"But you like him, all the same," Sora said, knowing as he did what those sparkles in Kai's eyes meant. They'd been traveling long enough together for Sora to know at least that much about his now-friend, though they'd been strangers when they'd started on this ridiculous quest.

"He's cute," Kai answered, all but snickering. "And so _fun_!"

"For you, maybe," Sora said dryly, shaking his head a bit.

"But anyway," Kai said, in a tone of voice that turned Sora's head to look at his friend, "He wasn't trained a princess, that's for certain."

"Really? I thought he was just being cranky, but—"

Kai shook his head. "When he woke up I thought he resembled a knight more than anything. Now I'm sure. Riku isn't a princess."

Sora coughed. "We did realize that when we saw he was a man," corners of his mouth twitching.


	2. Secret

Riku, thankfully, didn't make a fuss at the village, just asked to borrow some munny, and slipped away into the marketplace. While Kai went to follow him, Sora went to the bar.

He grinned cheekily at the man standing just outside the tavern, both guarding and defending it, getting a frown in return, and went past him and toward the bar counter.

"Dominique," he called a low, singsong voice once he was sure the bartender would hear him. Dominique turned around and her face brightened in that sunny way that Sora knew his brother at the door could never resist.

"Sora!" she exclaimed, relief in her voice. "You're all right."

"Of course I am!" Sora replied with a cheeky grin. "Listen," his voice got several octaves lower, "what do you know about the princess who was locked in the tower north of here?"

Dominique frowned. "Weren't you asking about that before? Didn't you finish your quest?"

"Yea, it is. But last time I was asking," he smiled his serious smile, that to casual observers was friendly enough, but which didn't reach his eyes, "I wanted to know how to get there."

Someone at the other end of the bar yelled for the bartender, and Dominique glanced in that direction before saying quickly, "Not much. I hafta run. I'll send Sion by later."

* * *

When Riku entered Sora's line of sight, he was wearing knight's armor. He'd also cut his hair, and it now hung at about his shoulders, instead of flowing down his back. Sora glanced at Kai and raised his eyebrows, remembering the conversation they'd had about Riku. Kai raised an eyebrow back, indicating he hadn't gotten anything out of Riku out of that—and Riku was looking at them both, an irritated expression on his face.

"Well," Sora coughed, embarrassed at having been caught having what was obviously a secret conversation, "I got rooms. We leave early in the morning."

Sora gave them each a key, and didn't comment at Riku's raised eyebrows. Really, he'd only gotten these rooms because Dominique insisted. They didn't have the munny otherwise.

Sora was quite sure he should be feeling embarrassed because he was supposed to be sure that the princess was used to better. But for some reason or other, he didn't.

* * *

The quiet knock at the door meant only one thing. Sora slipped a knife back into his boot as he stood to open the door.

To Sora's relief, it was only Sion, who didn't even glance around before sweeping in. Still, he was wary. The quiet knock in that subtle, specific pattern was a code developed between the brothers when something was up. And from the look on Sion's face, something was definitely _up._

"Good _evening_, Nii-san." Sora grinned cheekily. "How'sit going?"

Sion sent him a disgruntled look. Sion always hated it when Sora made light of serious predicaments.

"Nothing good," Sion answered, not engaging in their usual banter, which Sora took to be a sign that things were worse than normal. Sion handed over a piece of parchment. "This was all Dominique could remember. From ten years ago."

Sora looked up sharply. "Yea," Sion said, sitting on the bed.

"This isn't much," Sora mumbled, appraising the parchment.

Sion gave Sora that Look that meant Sion was irritated at the underreaction. Again. "Why did you want to know?" he settled for asking.

"My quest took me there," Sora answered, all too simply.

"And you've returned." Sion's unwavering gaze wasn't exactly unsettling, but serious all the same, "why do you want this information _now?_"

"Well you know," Sora evaded. "Always good to check around."

_Which you couldn't have done _before_ leaving for the tower?_ The question was in Sion's face. But what Sion actually said was, "Nothing to do with a certain pale-haired addition to your traveling companions, hmm?"

Sora twiddled his thumbs. "Might have something to do with that."

"Let me guess. He was the princess."

"Eh, you know how it is—"

"Which explains why he was locked up in a tower for _ten years_ masquerading as a princess. Also has nothing to do with the fact that roughly three days ago, all of the dark energy surrounding that area, and that tower in particular, just _stopped_?"

"Geez, Sion, take talking pills this morning or what?" Sora turned and stormed into the bathroom.

When Sora had himself reasonably clean and stepped back out into the room, Sion was still there. Sora sighed and went over to his weapons and the jar of polish.

"Look," Sora began, "I need to know because I was told to find the princess in that tower. And then put her in chains and haul her back to the Kingdom. They _first _ordered me to kill her, but I wasn't going to do that."

Sora only sensed more than heard Sion twitch and move, because he was looking at his sword and not at his brother.

After a moment, Sion seemed to pull himself together, "Why?"

Sora paused as he ran his polish over the surface of the sword. "You said it yourself. The dark energy centered on that tower. When I brought the princess away, it all just stopped."

Sora knew very well that that was not what Sion was asking. But Sora didn't really want to face that right now. Nor that Sora was pretty damn sure Kai had been sent as a spy. There was no other reason for the other knight to accompany him, _especially _because this quest was supposed to have been carried out with the utmost secrecy.

Not chaining or otherwise incapacitating Riku had been a risk. Sora assumed no one would assume the pale man to be the princess of the tower. Kai hadn't objected, which Sora took to be a good sign. But beyond that, Sora couldn't guess. He'd originally been ordered to kill Riku, after all.

Sora did not want to answer what Sion had intended to ask: _why would the Kingdom order this princess dead? Why order _you_ to do it?_


End file.
